ED 039 500

AUTHORTITLE

INSTITUTION

PUB DATENOTE

EDPS PRICEDESCRIPTORS

A.PSTRACT

DOCUMENT RESUME

AC 008 114

Lanteri-Laura, GeorgesPsycho-Sociological Research into the Paths andPhases of Intellectual Maturation and the Desire forKnowledge (From Childhood throughout. Life) .

Council of Europe, Strasbourg (France). Council forCultural Cooperation.Jun 6825p.; Studies in Permanent Education no.3/1968

''DRS Price MF-$0.25 HC-$1.35*Childhood, *Cognitive Development, ContinuousLearning, *Human Development, Information Needs,Intellectual Development, Psychology,*Psychophysiology

In reviewing the research of experimentalpsychology, genetic psychology, and psychopathology, the author findsthe data show: (1) the extreme importance of the period between thethird and sixth year when the Oedipus situation of the child isresolved and when he takes the first step in the use of reason; (2)

the importantce of the latency period between the second stage ofchildhood and puberty which corresponds to the sublAmatiolis necessaryfor the intellectual tasks to he performed emotively; (3) theprocesses of conditioning which bring into play the instrumentalmeans of knowledge and a system of motivations for knowledge; and (4)

current teaching practices as they correspond to systems of valuesand nJt to "scientifically objective" data. Permanent education cansucceed only when this data can be used to modify current childhooddevelopment practices. (DM)

councilfor

CDt"cultural cooperationtryCOCI C 0 M mittee

rtor

out-of-school education

council of europestrasbourg

U.S. DEPARTMENT CF HEALTH, EDUCATION 8 WELFA2E

OFFICE OF EDUCATION

THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE

PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT. POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS

STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION

POSITION OR POLICY.

PERMINENT

EDUCATION

PSYCHO-SOCIOLOGICAL

RESEARCH

STUDIES ON PERMANENT EDUCATION

No. 3/1968

.....m.t..ougerrooriegymonnioememalmowNallOW

PSYCHO-SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH INTO TrE PATHS AND PHASES OP

INTELLECTUAL MATURATION AND THE DASIRE FOR KNOWLEDGE

(FROM CHILDHOOD THROUGHOUT LIDO

by

Georges LANTERI- LAURA,

gaULD222gSTRASBOURG, JUNE 1968

10.37104.3/51.03

INTRODUCTION

ww 1

--='-'="--....--"------""7=211111111110111111111111

C ONTEITTS

WHAT WE KNOW OF PSYCHOLOGY

1. Experimental psychology

2, Genetic psychology

Pie

1

4

6

3. Psychopathology 12

II. OUR CONCLUSIONS CRITICALLY EXAUINED 14

1. Positive significance 14

2. Negative significance 18

3. Practical applications 18

E2ILOGUE 22

INTRODUCTION

The notion of permanent education is one fozi which no termexisted until comparatively recently, when it made its appearancein the vocabulary of some of the more highly cultivated nations,but the term itself carries more than one connotation and someattempt, however inadequate, at defining its exact content isindispensable. The association of both words in a single phrasemight almost be described as a neologism, in the sense that itis only now, in the second half of the 20th century, that it hasbecome possible to qualify the abstract noun "education", by theadjective "permanent" without appearing to indulge in a" piece ofeither surrealism or double-talk. Today, however, it is acceptedusage in all modern languages,, and no study of the vocabulary ofthe human sciences since the second world war would be completewithout a full definition of it. Whatever may be one'stheoretical reservations, the fact that the term has now its dateand place in history means that we cannot omit the concept fromour calculations.

Our present investigations will have greater, pertinence ifwe begin by considering the term's various connotations Themere fact that it consists of two words inevitably conjures upthe sense of each, and reminds us that the concept was, in itsorigin$0 a controversial one. The traditional view - widely heldbut none the more admirable for that - was that education couldlast only for the restricted period from early childhood tomanhood and that any attempt to introduce it at another age wouldbe misguided. Hence the uproar created by the use of the wordflpermanent". Nowadays, however, it has become the custom toextend education to the pre-school period, through the use ofinstitutions of the kindergarten type and also, less obviouslybut perhaps more significantly, by.schemes for teaching parentshow to bring up their children and encouraging the use ofcontraception with the ultimate purpose of preventing childrencoming into world except in suitable conditions. Talk ofpre-school education is therefore in line with current trendswhich may not everywhere be fully comprehended at the moment butwhich nevertheless exist. Talk of pos'o-school education, however,is still apt to sound something of a paradox.

In our present context, the word itp.21: takes on asignficance which demands careful definition, It does, not mean"continuous" in the ordinary mathematical sense which would implya Utopia in which education began in the womb and ceased only inthe grave. What it really implies is that education ought notto stop at a given moment; but that it can be interrupted and

later resumed. It implies different ways of plotting thetime-span of a single phenomenon. In this sense, it conve7s adesire net to limit education to a certain period in anindividual's existence but, after what is traditionally regardedas the completion of his studies. provide subsequent periods offurther education which he can combine with his daily life andoccupation, without breaking the continuity of either.

What is needed therefore, is a fresh look at the relationbetween the individual and the plotting of the time given to hiseducation. In addition, we must be ready to question twoassumptions ordinarily regarded as self-evident. The first ofthese is that education should take place during the second stageof childhood and adolescence; the second is that it should becontinuous during that period. Permanent education is impossibleunless we can come to accept these two assumptions as representingno more than one educatioaal possibility among many, so thateducation will cease, at least in certain respects, to be based onEuclidian principles. Our traditional assumptions will then bereplaced by two principles of a far more general nature. Firstlyit must be realised that education can take place at differentperiods of existence and that there is no need to restrict it towhat we have come to regard as the usual age, the reoult beingthat permanent education can apply to any period of a mnts life,up to and including retirement and old-age. The second principleIs that education can be interrupted for long periods and resumedagain later and need not be in any way linked to the concept ofcontinuity in time; in other werde, it can supervene at odd,unconnected periods,

It goes without saying that all these questions are bound upwith a concatenation of historical and econoraic contingenciesdivorced from which they will remain wholly utopian, It ir; nomere chance that has caused the question of permanent educationto arise during the second half of the 20th century, against a very:special political and demographic background. Moreover, itspromoters are anxious that, unlike technical re-training which isonly one of its aspects, permanent education should contribute tothe development of the whole man, and it is impossible to reflecton its content without realising that it implies the existence ofa scale of values which must be clarified before practice can takethe place of theory. One element in permanent education is thepleasure produced by the acquisition of knowledge As distingtithedhow from the mere acquisition of additional technical skills, this pea-supposes a certain desire for knowledge, which has no end otherthan its own satisfaction since what we are concerned with in thisstudy is promoting man's good, not his productivity In otherwords, no matter how clear an idea we may have of the content ofpermanent education, we have also to pre-suppose the existence ofa certain appetite for knowledge because no one will seek permanenteducation except to satisfy some craving in himself, regardless ofany external advantages it may well bring him.

/'

at

- 3 --

Let us therefore leave the choice of the historic, economicor sociological content of permanent education to thespecialists, and confine ourselves to its psychological basis,allo41ng our investigations some degree of free rein. Whateverits content or justification may be, the concept of permanenteducation implies in the individual a certain development intime of the desire for knowledge, which may vary from one periodof his life to another but which must be taken into account inthe preparation of any practical scheme. This should lead, usto try to assess such of our present psychological knowledge aswill enable us to distinguish with accuracy the different phasesof man's advance towards intellectual maturity, and his desire forknowledges from childhood up to and including the "third agentTo carry out this task adequately, we must begin by assessingthe conclusions recognised as incontrovertible reached in thevarious branches of psychology which relate to our enquiry.While covering as much ground as possiblel our investigationwill not always be able to follow a rigid plan because psychologytoday, though still regarded as in principle a singlediscipline, is composed of a number of branches only very looselyconnected with each other. In addition, vre shall discover malaygaps in our knowledge, and hence many questions to whichpsychology is still unable to provide answers. When we havecompleted our investigation, we must stand back and assess itsresults critically so as to see how far the information we haveassembled is relevant to our purpose. Lastly, we must lay downsome guiding lines for future research capable of completing ourpresent knowledge.

.1.

WHAT WE KNOW OF PSYCHOLOGY

We shall obtain the information we are seeking only byinvestigating the various fields of modern psychology; but weshould not expect these to reveal either a unitary principle - thepresent state of our knowledge allowing us to form more than oneconcept of the evolution of mants intelligence - or to point toone branch of psychology as being superior to the rest) since evengenetic psychology cannot offer us a complete picture of this fieldof knowledge. We shall therefore try to distinguish therespective contributions of experimental psychology, geneticpsychology (which covers a great deal more than mert,childpsychology), and psychopathology to the sum .of our knowledge ofpsychology as a whole,

1. gplperiment.aLumhology

By experimental psychology is meant the study of man trid ofcertain animal species, the latter studied not for themselves(experimental psychology not being synonymous with ecology), butas offering examples of functional characteristics which exist inanimals in r comparatively simple state, but which, in man, havereached an altogether higher level of complexity. Studiesrelating to man invariably begin with experiments using arelatively simple models where the variables;can be controlled(e.g. tasks involving a number of choices) which is then moc.ifiedat a later stage in order to measure mants concrete activities.In either case, the use of the model and the practice of extra-polation remain essential.

The first stage of research deals with the reception ofmessages or information and this, in the present context, presentsa dual interest. In the first place, it revolutionises theconcept of threshold, because what is received is not a stimulusbut a signal, Hence, this represents a first step towardscommunication by means of words, and makes it possible to try tomeasure the optimal amount of information receivable by a livingbeing within a given time unit. In the second place, the extentto which the stimuli can be received as signals depends upon thedegree to which prior practice (or conditioning) has permitted theestablishment of a process, the key to which is a pattern ofconditioned responses. In other words, ability to receivestimuli in the form of messages depends not only on the structureof the sensory receiving apparatus and nervous system, but alsoon the sum of the earlier stimuli and the length of time duringwhich they have been administered. Hence, it is almost impossibleto draw a hard and fast distinction between the practice orconditioning and the actual receiving of the information.

.5.

Conditioning remains one of the licensed fields ofexperimental psychology and the use of the maze, with all itspossible permutations and combinations, continues to be one ofthe techniques most widely employed because it will producestatistical results. It has permitted the formulation of anumber of laws as a result of which learning is one of thephenomena on which. experimental psychology is best informed.In fact, the vital point is probably not to try to discoverwhether conditioning can be explained entirely in terms oftrial and error, or whether a place must also be allowed toinsight, as suggested by the theory of form. Nor should toomuch importance be given to mathematical models, of the typeintroduced by Hull, which ultimately fernish us with no morethan a summary of the phenomena under consideration as a whole.The essence of the knowledge acquired about learning is' thatthe main elements in conditioning are identical in-, the case ofall vertebrates so that, in this respect, comparativeexperimental psychology becomes identical with generalexperimental psychology. Certain formal elemants-of conditioningexist independently of tha Tpeci:).s concerned, ond .:.re to be found

equally in man and in the lower vertebrates.

Lastly, experiments have provided us with a certain amountof data on the extent to which information received is retained.Here there are two fields on which a considerable body ofknowledge exists, one relating solely to man ana the other toall vertebrates. A special study has been made of thephenomenon of forgetfulness, in connection with the disappearanceof the conditioned response which shows that the StimUlus needsto be renewed from time to "(Arne if the conditioned response isto continue to be made. In the case of man, two correlateddata are required before his capacity to retain informationreceived can be determined. The amount of information that hecan retain being limited, the retention of fresh information ispossible only on condition that he forgets a part of what, he has

received formerly. For a given individual, however, the maximumamount of information he can retain varies according to theextent to which the various items are interconnacted. and form

a coherent whole; the more this is the case, the higher hislevel of retention will be.

There is one comment which provides a more radical turn tothe knowledge thus provided by experimental psychology. Allexperiments with animals are based on the supposition that thesubject must be provided with a motive for traversing the mazeor solving the problem-box and this is what makes it necessaryto use such incentives as hunger, pain and pleasure, although ingeneral these are not applied according to any scientifically

.1.

_6

prescribed method. It is nevertheless impossible to study theprocess of conditioning and retention by experiment without somemeans of ensuring that the animals do in fact follow the paths ofthe maze and try to get out of the cage. If that aspect is sorarely noticed, this is probably because in human experimentalpsychology the factor concerned is already present so that researchwork can be carried out: experimental subjects have to take partwillingly, whatever their motives, in order that the experimentcan take place, even if these motives have nothing to do with itsprogramme.

2. Genettajmutjawa

Genetic psychology is not restricted to child psychology,which is only one of its facets, but endeavours to describe thedevelopment of the htiman being from birth to old age; in thepresent state of knowledge however, it concerns itself almostentirely with the child and the adolescent and deals only in afragmentary manner with adults. It supplies very inadequateinformation concerning a long intermediate period.

(a) Child psychology

This subject has become known thanks to a number of strictlygenetic research projects and to the results of psycho-pedagogicalstudies. The psychology of the child and adolescent, as under-stood in modern times, is expounded fairly comprehensively by manywriters, such as CLAPAREDE, GESELL, K. KOFFKA, H, WALLON andJ. PIAGET. The theoretical origins and basic inspirations fortheir research projects differ very greatly and are oftencontradictory, but their positive results tend to converge to acertain extent, and nothing is lost by offering a summary whichaccentuates their common aspects rather than their differences..

The first point is without doubt the continuity between thepsychomotor development of early childhood (which begins duringembryonic and foetal life as GESELL's book shows) and the laterdevelopment of intelligence through the stages of perceptiveacqujsition, adaptation to language and finally schooling. Thusthere is a form of continuity from the reflexes of ocular fixation

/.

to the acquiring of grammar and mathematics, to the extent towhich these are ever more highly adapted responses by theorganism to increasingly complicated environmental situations,This means that in certain respects the genetic psycholy ofintelligence can be understodd in terms of the development ofthe instrumental functions, knowledge appearing as theco-ordinated behaviour of a multiplicity of investigatinginstruments when faced with the reality of the surroundingworld. The development of instrumental means of intelligencegoes hand in hand with the growing maturity of the nervous systemand it has long been known that there is a parallelism betweenthe development of aptitudes and the myeliriisation of the whitefibres. Moreover, to speak of intelligence in terms ofinstrumental means and to emphasise the links its developmenthas with the brain structure amounts to saying one and the samething: that, in two different ways, the adaptation of the humanorganism to its surrounding world is carried out in gradualintellectual and specific steps which are mostly identified withthe nervous apparatus that serves as a functional basis.Mention need only be made of the general scope of conditionedreflexes, as explained by PAVLOV in the second part of his work,in order to realise that the structure and functioning of thenervous system enable it to correspond to the totality of thesurrounding world and that with the second system of signals .

in the PAVLOVIAN sense of the word - the acquisition of languagecan be classified among the specifically neurological `models.

This development of intelligence, which is more or lesscontinuous from the first motor reactions up to the acquiring ofknowledge at school, is often described in terms of assimilationand adaptation. These two terms, which are peculiar to PIAGET'swork, but which recur in essence in all contemporary geneticpsychology, imply that in its relations with the world 4 theliving organism (in this particular case, homo sapiens) alwaysmakes use of two simultaneous processes, one of which consistsin retaining the completely subjective picture of the materialworld as already perceived, i.e. by assimilating that world tothe subject, and the other in admitting the existence of thingsas they really are and accepting the independent existence of the

material world by adapting the subject to that world which hehimself is not and on which he has to model himself. Thispresents a picture of the evolution of intelligence, which appearsas a natural development of a multiplicity of operatory functionslinked to the structure of the nervous system and capable ofassimilating the material world. The result is thus a"natural history" of intelligence - within the meaning that thisterm, first used by BUFFON, acquired in the 18th century -

.1.

- 8 -

which consists in reporting on human behaviour, interpreting itaccording to the maturation of the nervous system and, by meanswhich are in the last resort Pavlovian explaining the indefinableway in which it grasps the material world.

Two additional comments should make it possible to give thesepositive acquisitions their true meaning in contemporary research.It should be noted that in clinical psychology and neuro-anatomyall studies show clearly that the instruments of intelligencelose their power very early. It is known that the total quantityof neurons is acquired at birth, that neurons are cells whichdiffer far too much f-iom one another to be able to reproduce, and

. that from birth to death, man loses every day a certain number ofthese cells which are obviously not replaced. That is to saythat the neuronic substratum of the instruments of intelligenceis bound to diminish: its functioning, however, is not purely andsimply restricted by that process, for over a number of decadesthe negative phenomenon of the loss of neurons is more than offsetby the acquisition of knowledge, so that the graph showing theanatomo-physiological potential over a period of time is thealgebraic sum of two curves, one falling from the outset andrepresenting the anatomical deficit, the other rising over a longperiod; and then falling illustrating functional adaptation andacquisition; this sum produces an overall curve, which rises atfirst, then remains level from adolescence to middle age andfinally falls, Moreover, all research work into clinicalpsychology confirms this point of view and pire,hometric studies(TERMAN SPEARMAN, WECHSLER) show that inter:6ence looked at fromthe instrumental point of view either as general intelligence, oras a series of specialised aptitudes, develops v.s the combinationof two factors - the resources directly dependent upon the neuronicapparatus and gradually declining from the age of aoout 25, andthe possibilities connected with learning, mnesic structurationand experience which more than compensate for that deteriorationuntil the period of involution or middle age.

However, almost all methods of clinical psychology which makeit possible to study the development of intelligence and to acquirean idea of its genetic aspects are linked in many ways to schooland educational techniques. To be sure, we are no longerexclusively dependent on the scale drawn up by BINET and SIMON,and modern psychometry is endea7ouring to 17Teak loose from theattitudes of school education; the very concept of a scale ofperformance (as opposed to the verbal scale) is itself evidenceof an attempt to assess the individual aptitudes of a subject, in

/,

isolation from his language, which is a reflection of the ambientcivilisation. Thus we are in fact relying on investigationmethods whose aim is to isolate the fundamental aspects ofintelligence which might be said to be anterior to educationand culture and to owe nothing to them.

It is nevertheless true that all psychometric procedureswhich help us to determine the genetic psychology of intelligencewere conceived of within a certain educational theory, theironly possible starting-point even if they often questioned itsvalue. In other words, even if their upshot was to militateagainst a particular form of education, psychometric argumentswere based on a genetic and differential assessment ofintelligence worked out within a given framework c educationalmedia - often a very broad one. Thus ft is not certain thatthese genetic views can give rise to radical innovations: it isnot enough to be aware of their dependence on our educationalbackground in order to free ourselves from it, for the problemconcerned goes much deeper than the need to free oneself fromthe prejudices of onels own culture.

Indeed when we try to disregard our educational backgroundour purpose is to take into account only the development ofintelligence as we know it: we hope to break with theseeducational habits in favour of a corpus of knowledge directlyrelated to tne development of intelligence M But such knowledgeis derived from this self-same educational background and becauseof its origins cannot question thew,: educational habitsradically. That is a fundamental difficulty which isextremely hard to resolve.

But it must be recognised that the research work so farmentioned is concerned with only a part of genetic psychologyand explains only a sector of the development of relationsbetween the child - later the adolescent - and knowledge. Allthe works which we have just referred to deal with the need forknowledge as the use of the instruments of intelligence but donot say anything about the relations between the need forknowledge and emotive life. Yet the psychologist cannot acceptit as gospel that there is no link between these two fields,even if in fact the chief disciples of both have deliberatelyignored one another. We must, then, take into consideration thecontributions, even partial, of the psychology of emotivity tothe study of intelligence (S. FREUD, E. PICHON, A. FREUD,M. KLEIN).

. /.

- 10 -

A number of points fundamental to the emotive issue are,moreover, revealed with a precision which we are scarcelyaccustomed to expect from a study of emotivity in view of thebasic prejudices which the very word "emotivity" constantlyarouses because of its semantic field, and that precision can beexpressed it two levels. The study of childhood through thepsychotherapy of neurotic adults, followed by the more directknowledge of children themselves, reveal first of all that thesatisfaction of the thirst for knowledge is generally situated inthc: period commonly known as the "latency" stage passed throughafter early childhood and before the onset of puberty, that is tosay between two phases which can be characterised in very differentways: the first years of childhood coincide with the myelinisationof the axons, the dormant phase of the genital glands and therelation between the genital glands, the antehypophysis cerebri andthe solution of the 0#441411$ situation- puberty is marked by thematurity of the genital glands, the acquisition of secondarysexual characteristics, the physiological actions which this makespossible and the transition from the imaginary to the real insexual life. During the latency period, the act of acquiringknowledge is reflected as a form of sublimation in a certainsatisfaction of the libido and in material satisfaction; the childof eleven years who is introduced to algebra satisfies in asublimated manner impulses which he 'is unable (which his body i$still unable) to satisfy in a concrete manner, but on the otherhand he does really learn algebra which becomes one of the basicmethods for rationally grasping the material world.

But three further comments will give these ideas a moreradical slant. Obviously, if the introduction to knowledge comesafter the surmounting of the oedipus period, this is firstlybecause the introduction to knowledge and the pleasure of acquiringit are connected with the parental roles': self-satisfaction inacquiring knowledge means that the individual is eitheridentifying himself with his father, or is opposing this process,for knowledge can be both a means of identification - placingknowledge at the centre of his life, like his father i.e.introducing himself to life by means of acquiring knowledge - anda means of acquiring independence by acting in a different mannerKnowledge is thus a means of solving a particular aspect of theoedipus situation. That does not in any way mean that knowledgeis litAted to that process, although it can play a fundamentalpart in this. When FREUD makes a radical distinction betweensoblimation and repression, he does so in order to reveal that atru(,) understanding of the material world can be obtained only atthe expense of a certain amount of libidinal energy, and thatknowledge is not acquired without effort.

- 11

It should also be noted that knownamely the latency period, which is iexist only in relation to a primitiveStudy of the first year of infancy (the initial situation of the livingof a move towards the perception oof narcissism and that access to tthrough outside forces.

.0.17,111,

ledge appears in a context,n no way autonomous and cansituation to which it refers.

M. KLEIN, SPITZ) shows thatbeing is in fact not thatthe material world, but a form

he material world is gained

These two remarks give rise to a to rd. Contemporarypsychology can no longer consider the exercise of knowledge aspurely and simply the spontaneous use of instrumental functionssince knowledge implies outside intervention. There is alwaysa need to realise that access to knowledge and its proper usecannot be described in terms of merely putting into practicepre-existing possibilities, but require us to take intoconsideration the meaning which knowledge has in relationsbetween human beings.

(b) Gerontology

The thirst for knowledge in later life has been much lessthoroughly studied and our information here is still veryfragmentary. Two fairly different factors can be isolated.As already pointed out an analysis of the development ofaptitudes reveals that they begin to decline fairly early butthat the effects of their decline are offset for a long time byexperience acquired and by memory. It must be recognised, too,that a quantitative study of these phenomena still remains to bemade - WECHSLER's concept of the deterioration index can giveonly a fragmentary picture. Such research work is alsounsatisfactory in that it takes account only of chronologicalage (measured by cosmic time), whereas it should be possibleconcurrently to take into account a biological characterisationof age and a demographic reference, insofar as age has a meaningonly in relation to the biological ageing of the organism andits position on the age pyramid. Biological and demographicchemistry are thus fundamental sources but are difficult touse.

Bpointserieof rcer

ut gerontological research work concerns us from anotherof view. Alongside the study of cerebral decline as of investigations detllswith the very complex question

etirement - related simultaneously to the phenomena ofebral and endocrine abiotrophy, an alteration in the

./.

- 12 -

pragmatic grasp of the world, and the reduction in the powers ofthe libido, Yet it is noted in such a situation that theacquisition of new knowledge can be compatible with decline andthat the reduction in the sciendi may be largely offsetby an activity in the nature of a sublimation: knowledge of thepsychological processes of an elderly subject obliges us to takeinto consideration the reciprocal relation between a certaindeficiency in the means for acquiring knowledge and an increasein the motives for learning.

3. Psychopathology

The psychological study of the various fields of pathologycould provide us with numerous indications concerning inadequacyin the development of intellectual activities, peculiar to thestages of oligophrenia and the decay of these activities due tomental disorders. Thus there is indeed a » partially autonomous -pathology of intelligence which furnishes many cases where acerebral impairment results in either the partial or the completedi$.appearance of a particular aptitude for learning or makes itimpossible fully to acquire such aptitude. Hence pathology showsclearly the links between the instruments of learning and thecerebral cnaracteristies of the individual. We cannot dwell uponthe subject here, but two specific fields should attract ourattention,

In many cases where the development of intellectual aptitudesis normal and where no instrumental deficiency can be found, it isseen, during childhood and adolescence, that the subject concernedis unable, for neurotic or psychotic reasons, to use theinstrumental means in quest n. Hospitalisation, described bySPITZ, is a prime example of this; here we are dealing withchildren who for various reasons are isolated during their earlychildhood and spend many months in hospita: institutions wherenobody can play the part of the parental figure; in a highpercentage of cases, such children, in spite of the quality oftheir mental standards as shown by psycho7letry develop onlymediocre intellectual powers in later years unless they are giventhe appropriate psychotherapy. This infers that it is difficultto consider intellectual aptitudes as mere instruments existingin their own right and independent of any context, and they mustbe looked upon in the light of the individual ease- history

fa

- 13-

which determines them: therefore is there any sense inregarding them as instrumental functions? Cases of infantileschizophrenia give rise to similar comments: pathology showsmany subjects who, despite intellectual equipment whichpsychometric techniques force us to regard as normal, giveeviaence of no better intellectual adaptation than that ofseverely affected oligopbrenics. Schizophrenia.in the adultreveals situations Which are often very similar: the intellectualequipment remains intact but it ceases to be used emotively andfor that reason, whilst still being potentially available, canno longer be used at all.

To deal with a less serious problem, heterogeneoustroubles which it is expedient to classify under dyslexia callfor similar comments. Here we are dealing with a subject ofnormal intelligence but for whom access to the written languageis almost impossible, in that for motives connected with bothlateralisation troubles and neurotic inn.ibition.sy reading andwriting are inaccessible. Appropriate re-education causes thesephenomena to disappear. They provide an example of the blockingof the desire to learn - an inhibitory process quite independentof the effector mechanisms of the intelligence, capable ofremoval by suitable therapy, and in itself evidence of therelationship between intelligence and emotive engagement,

.1.

-14 -

11. OUR CONCLUSIONS CRITICALLY EXAMINED

A study of the numerous contributions by the N,Irious branchesof psychology has thus furnished us with a body of informationwhose implications must now be analysed. Some, we feel, aremainly positive in significance in that they provide certainInfo:mation concerning the development of the means of acquiringknowledge; others reveal the shortcomings of this informationand show the need for further studies which might well partlyoffset the gaps in our knowledge.

1, rositive_saalficance

We have, then, emphasised a number of known data peculiarto the development of the means of acquiring knowledge, Fromthem there emerges a composite picture of development fromaptitudes to knowledge and, in certain respects, we thus arriveat a sort of natural history of the desire for knowledge in homosapiens. These data may be resumed in a form of a time-scalewhose main aspects closely resemble the life-history of aparticular biological function, sufficiently exemplified by thedevelopment and decline of the ovary or testicles.

We have seen, firstly, that the means of acquiring knowledgehave a certain temporal development which continues throughoutlife and at a particular moment in time corresponds to thealgebraic sum of a number of factors hereafter specified. Inessence, this development is identical in animals and man, ormore exactly in homo sapiens and the other mammals. Apart froma few minor differences, throughout a process that is continuousfrom conception until death, the nervous system (and inparticular, the brain) develops on the following lines: it begins,exclusively during the embryonic and foetal period, with theformation of histological structures peculiar to itself; then,after birth, comes the myelinisation of certain white fibres,rapidly followed by the destruction of the neurons which startsearly and is never made good, since nerve cells differ toogreatly from one another to allow of their reproduction.

Therefore, the purely instrumental aspect of intellectualmaturation, seen from a strictly anatomical point of view, wouldreveal only a falling-off, beginning very early and continuingwithout pause until death. Yet observations do not confirmsuch a development which must be offset by the action of twoother factors at least. From the physiological point of viewit should indeed be noted that a straightforward neuron count

.1.

does not give an exact picture of the overall functional value ofthe neurons, since this is related both to their absolutenumber and to their functional ramifications, just as theabsolute number of monetary tokens does not suffice tocharacterise the economy and account must also be taken of thespeed at which they circulate. In facet, neuronic activity isdependent both on the number of neurons and on all theirfunctional relationships. Consequently for a very long time theincrease in the functional relationships between the neuronsmore than compensates for their loss in number so thatphysiological development does not decrease until maturitywhilst anatomical development is negative from the beginning.It should also be noted that for a long time that which isacquired makes a positive contribution ir the sense that itfacilitates intellectual activities up to a saturation pointwhich differs very widely but is rarely achieved.

Thus the development of the instrumental aspects ofintelligence shows a remarkable harmony between neuro-physiologicaldata and genetic psychometry. The whole can be summed up ina graph whose two axes are time and intellectual potentialrespectively: the curve rises until the end of puberty andthen more or less levels off until middle age sets in, whenit begins to descend rapidly. The interpretation of thisgraph must be qualified by two remarks concerning the choiceof axes. It is not at all certain that the time factor ishomogeneous here along the whole length of the axis untildeath, for there are far more changes from the first to thetenth year than from the thirtieth to the fortieth, so thatthe unit of measure is very heterogeneous: we are not dealingwith a reversible time-continuum but with the chronologicalclassification of unconnected periods; the literary expression"the ages of man" perfectly sums up the mathematical structure:.of these temporal references. The practical use of cartesianco-ordinates must not cause us to lose sight of this peculiarityof time. Moreover, the axis of the ordinates corresponds toa certain measure of the intellectual potential classifiedaccording to a univocal series; but sunh a series assumes thatthe various scales which are used to identify intellectualpotential can be reduced to a single linear order. This logicaloperation is not always possible and it is above all thedifferences which are heterogeneous: the increase in intellectualpotential between five and ten years is not comparable to thegrowth between twenty and twenty-five so that it would beinaccurate to regard for example the second as equal to aquarter of the first. It is only within each period that

/

rigorous comparisons can be made which prove illusory when usedto compare one period with another. That is why we must payextremely careful attention to the correction of a phenomenonwhich was already referred to when we pointed out that the levelof intellectual potential remained more or less constant fromthe end of puberty until middle age. In truth, if the graph inquestion is looked at closely, it will be seen that at the endof puberty and at the beginning of middle ago, there are twosingular points where the derivative becomes indefinite andwhich correspond to what is called "the point of inflection" inanalysis. They denote the fact that the meaning of developmentis different before and after a given period. It should also besaid that from the end of puberty to middle age, although thecurve appears to flatten out at first sight, closer investigationof the facts shows that it rises slowly, reaches its maximum atvariable dates and then declines gradually. In other words,the development which takes place in this period is not accuratelyassessed by a scale which may well suit the beginning and the endbut which is not relevant during those years. Despite thesereservations the general pace of development retains anindicative value which is a fair enough summary of our knowledge.

However, contributions from certain specialised sectorsof genetic psychology and psychopathology showad that assessmentof the need for knowledge was scarcely possible without bearingin mind its emotive aspects: more precisely, knowledge strovetowards its aims only if it instinctively felt them desirable.In other words, the desire to know is an inescapable factor.That is already clear at the level of animal psychology, for,daring experiments, it is assumed that the rat tends to gothrough the maze only if he is motivated by hunger or anunpleasant stimulus which he wishes to avoid. Punishment andreward remain the basic operative notions of experimentalpsychology.

Now, in man, the desire to know stems throughout his wholedevelopment from a combination of two orders of factors, whichendow the objects to be known with the qualities that make themdesirable: it is also intrinsic both to men and to the objectsthemselves. The first of these factors is historical andsociological: the acquisition of knowledge appears desirableto the extent to which culture has already made it appear assuch, for a number of different motives. Firstly, these

./

t.

acquisitions can play a part in the development of existence andin numerous occupations it is indispensable to increase knowledgein order to keep up or to make progress. Moreover, in ourcivilisation, and for reasons whose origins should beanalysed, culture has a prestige of its own which makes itsacquisition desirable for its own sake, inasmuch as it remainsthy; inescapable prerequisite for attaining a certain image ofman generally hele, to be worth striving after, The desire toknow is then wholly mediated by the desire of others, but themotivation remains essential, and mediation through the desireof a third party does not mean for one moment that such adesire is illusory.

But such mediation is possible only for reasons of adifferent nature. During the emotive development of infancyand adolescence, pathology offers many cases where the means toobtain knowledge exist but are hardly used because, forpathological reasons, knoxledge cannot be experienced asdesirable and its acquisition is barred. Pathology does nomore in such cases than magnify a very general process: accessto knowledge in the case of a child always means self.identification with the parents? access to knowledge andacceptance or refusal of a part which has already been played.There we find, but at a more primitive level, mediation throughthe will of others.

Thus it must 'be said that the general development of thephases of intellectual maturation and the need for knowledgecorrespond to the sum total of two simultaneous developments,that of the instrumental means and that of the desire to know; ittherefore seems easy to construct a third graph by addingalgebraically for each temporal value in the abscissa, thevalues of the instrumental means and of the desire to know.In fact, this operation seems hardly worth while because ofthe heterogeneity of the terms. The development of theinstrumental means measues that of qualities inherent in theindividual, which are very directly linked to the structureof his nervous system. The development of the desire to know'is related to a phenomenon which is just as natural as thepreceding one, but which is connected with the whole body ofthe relationships of the subject and his entourage, so thatit is no longer possible to regard it as an independentcharacteristic of the individual. Hence if this heterogeneityis respected, one can no longer justifiably add up these twofactors algebraically: here we come up against a verysignificant limit to our psychological knowledge. Nor do webelieve that this antinomy is peculiar to homo sapiens: itseems that it can be found at least among higher mammals'

/

.18.

2. Negative significance

The studies whose contribution to the problem we haveanalysed contain a number of weaknesses which we cannot evade.Firstly, the most rigourously established facts concerning thephenomena of learning are those established by means of experimentson animals. Two questions arise here: to what extent can weextrapolate facts obtained from the white rat or the goldenhamster to man, and, above all, within what limits can we admitthat the elntary phenomena of learning thus revealed constitutea model for the phenomena which concern us in man? Briefly,what is most convincingly established is least easilytransferable, for the more precisely the model is known, thefurther away it is from toe phenomena which it is supposed toillustrate.

Moreover, pathologal data may be used only indirectly.They show the dependence of the need for knowledge on thebrain and on desire, but ghat is a piece of information whichis based on negative foundations. In this case pathology hasno positive contribution to make.

Lastly, genetic psychology offers well-founded informationonly for the periods of early childhood and adolescence anddeals very superficially with the age of decline. The wholeintermediate period of maturity is scarcely known, and there isno body of knowledge dealing with it as the classical works ofPIAGET or WALLON do with childhood. That is a serious.gapwhich is in no way bridged by fragmentary studies on vocationalaptitudes.

3. Practical aj2piications

The balance of the positive aspects and the gaps in thecontributions of psychological knowledge to the problems ofpermanent education make it possible to put down a few practicalpoints which must now be explained in more detail. It seemsthat, in spite of its provisional and imperfect character, ourknowledge already suggests a certain number of applicationswithout its being necessary to await the rounding-off of thetheory - an improbable event . before these are put intopractice.

(a) Genetic psychology and psychopathology convergeto show the extrame importance of the period between the thirdand sixth year when the Oedipus situation of the child isresolved and when he takes his first step in the use of reasonwhich has both affective and instrumental foundations.

/.

- 19-

The exact age can vary according to the child, but the factremains that it is between early childhood and the first schoolyear that the first intellectual capital begins to have arelationship with objects offered by the surrounding world.That is why special attention should be paid to the kindergartenand nursery school. Naturally there can be no question ofselecting highly gifted children who could assimilate thefirst year primary curriculum while still at nursery school.Rather should we reflect seriously on the content of thispre-school teaching: in our opinion, the early stages oflearning must not be focused solely on non-verbal conditioningmaking no use of the second system of "signals" (as understoodby PAVLOV) and situated outside symbolic factors, nor should itbe stuffed with material borrowed from traditional primaryteaching. Thus, the problem is to determine the types ofconditioning likely to avoid these two stumbling-blocks.

These observations should be supplemented by a few comments.Firstly, it can be seen that the organisation of curriculaaccording to age. groups is determin3d, not, as is often claimed,by the natural needs resulting from genetic psychology, but byhistorical, social and economic needs which preclude the seriousorganisation of schooling early enough and a sufficientlythorough training of the teachers. It is evident, indeed,that the pedagogical aspects of nursery schools, where theseobservations were taken into account would be a complicatedmatter, calling for special teacher training facilities.Moreover, since the childis aptitudes differ very greatly fromone subject to another, only techniques based on programmedteaching can be suitable. Lastly, it is no longer possible todelay the entry of the child to the world of reason under thepretext that he is not old enough.

(b) We have stressed the importance of the latency periodwhich, between the second stage of childhood and the beginningof puberty, corresponds to the constitution of the sublimations

necessary for the intellectual tasks to be performed emotively.

This period is crucial because it is the moment when thelibido can be used to facilitate entrance to reason and the

acquisition of knowledge. It is occupied by primary teaching

and the early years of secondary education, from first year

primary up to the statutory school-leaving age. This is a

period which tends to be neglected at present, to the extent

./.

- 20 -

that the training of responsible teachers is increasinglyinadequate - a notable paradox in our primary and secondaryeducation. It is, in fact, so organised that the best teachersare bound to wish to teach in the terminal classes and thehierarchy is such that the greatest kudos attaches, in France,to teaching those classes where pupils are prepared for the"Grandy Ecoles". Yet, from the point of view of educationaltheory, it is far more difficult and more important to dealwith children during the period when sublimations are mostactive than to prepare adolescents for competitive examinations.What is being questioned here is the social image of the teachersfhierarchy: we should eschew the muddled thinking wherebymastery of a difficult subject is ranked higher than theteaching of fundamentals. To teach the rudiments of algebrawell to children of eleven years of age has far more educationalvalue than to demonstrate STOCKESf theorem to buddingpolytechnicians: the jobs are too different for the second tobe regarded as the full flowering of the first.

(c) We have seen how the processes of conditioning bringinto play the instrumental means of knowledge and a system ofmotivations for knowledge, inextricably linked with the firstsublimations, the images of reason in the development of childrenand adolescents and the prestige which historically forms pare andparcel of the possession of knowledge. Indeed, the desire forknowledge, in spite of all appearances, is not spontaneous nor,what is more, is it autonomous; it is not self-sufficient andits basis lies outside itself. It depends upon the role playedby intellectual capital in the evolutionary balance of the subjectand for that reason cannot be regarded as an independent value,

The question, then, is how and to what extent it may beadmissible, pertinent and effective to work out a new educationaltheory capable cf taking into account these motivations peculiarto the desire for knowledge, both in adolescents and adults, and,perhaps, of encouraging that desire. There is, of course, no casefor putting forward recipes aimed at guiding pupils in a desireddirection (desired, incidentally, by whom and to what end ?). Whatwe must understand is that all educational activity corresponds,jn a positive or negative manner, to the desire for knowledge,and alters that desire to a certain extent. It remains to determinethe means: at present there is no research wort: available tohelp us do so.

0) Lastly, in what way do the analyses contained in thisreport directly concern the problems of permanent education?First, our research clearly shows that current teaching practicesin our civilisations correspond to what can be called, accordingto preference, ideologies or systems of values, and not to

- 21 -

"scientifically objective" data, in that the sciences concernedand questioned are all bound up, willy nilly, in .a spirit ofconsc.Lous acceptance or rejection with our historical context.Other. types of teacning are conceivable, and the authorityof tradition is not that of knowledge. Moreover, permanenteducation can succeed, that is to say make people happy, onlyif it corresponds to certain desires for knowledge, for mencan fulfil themselves by participating in knowledge only ifthat knowledge already has an intrinsic value. The raisondtetre of permanent education, and.its possible content, canbe discussed only if it is understood that its existencedepends upon its satisfying and thus fertilising the desirefor knowledge. Only a rigorous analysis of the phenomenon of"libido sciendi" can hope to provide it with valid foundations.

.1.

- 22 -

E,PILOGUE

Thus contemporary psychological knowledge can furnishcertain theoretical bases for a study of the aspects and phasesof intellect'aal development and the need for knowledge in man.However, these bases can be compared to what is known, forexample, about the need for food according to age, only insofar asthe need for knowledge, however dependent it may be on theneuronic apparatus, is not autonomous, develops only within acertain interhuman context and implies an already existingcultural background: this structuration is in no way mysterious,but does give rise to difficultis that are all its own.

Two types of research work hence seem to us essential todevelop the study of a valid theoretical basis. Firstly,investigations should be made into the little known periods,attempting at the same time to determine what is the best wayof splitting up the different phases and what period of timeeach covers. Secondly, it is necessary to work out a rigorousepistemology of the phenomenon of need itself in order to avoidits being lost to view as our study proceedst adequate modelsfor research are lacking and it would be very useful to createthem. By so doing it will be possible to develop with scientificrigour the theoretical bases that psychology can offer topermanent education.

4.1.0.=.1mireoenNamr

ERIC Clearinghouse

JUN 61970

on Adult Education